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Azumi

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Recently watched Azumi.

My one word review: "Blows."

My review involving a few more words:

"Imagine a Japan peopled by walking cardboard-cutout stereotypes. Imagine a Japan where the same people that brought you the Backstreet Boys, N Sync and Brittney Spears bring you a fresh new act of young faces, singing... Er, assassinating their way to the top.

An old priest tells a scarred warrior that to end violence, it'd be best if he'd go out into the wilderness, choose ten orphans, and make them into the next Backstreet Boys, er, assassins and have them kill off warlords that want to plunge the land into chaos.

It's hackneyed. It's just bad. It's like watching Seven Samurai filtered through the eyes of Lou Pearlman.

The acting is wooden. There is no characterization beyond the stereotypes the characters represent. Even the fight choreography is dreck - all the fancy editing in the world can't conceal the fact that the pop-stars, er, assassins are probably better at swinging a baseball bat than they are at swinging a sword. If you edited a baseball bat into their hands, what you see on the screen would actually make a lot more sense at times, come to think of it...

Worst of all, it was boring.

I turned the movie off halfway though. Reading other reviews on IMDB, it apparently only got worse, so I count myself lucky.

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